Can't go wrong with this!

Ugh, I've been feeling like garbage the past few weeks and it stinks! But I think I'm starting to feel a bit better *touch wood*. Today I have a UV polish for you guys from The Born Pretty Store. I have actually done home gel polish before, but I have no clue if I reviewed it and I'm far too lazy to check.

I decided to try this out specifically because it was matte and I have never seen a matte UV polish and I'm a sucker for matte polish. Now on Born Pretty's site they don't have instruction on how to apply it for those who may not know so I'll explain.

1) Clean your nails of residue with remover. 2) Add your gel base coat(I skipped this because...I forgot tbh), then cure under UV lamp 3) Polish nails, making sure not to get any on skin as it will cure there and be hard to take off. Then cure after each coat 4) Add UV top coat and cure. Skip this step if you want to keep the polish matte. 5) Wipe down nails with rubbing alcohol to get rid of excess residue.

Application of the polish was really easy, and it worked like all the other gel polishes I have used in the past. I was a little worried about wiping them down after they were matte, but in the end it was totally fine. Honestly the one big downside for me was the wear time. I started to peel after a few days and had tip wear early on. That being said I have tried a few at home UV polishes and they have all acted the exact same way even with a base coat.

The polish itself is BEAUTIFUL. It's a deep purple with copper flecks. It kind of reminds me of Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI?. They feel like cousins. It applied easily with 2 coats.

Honestly I would recommend this polish as well as the others from the line. They are on par with polishes like Sally Hansen, but only cost anywhere from $3.82 - $7 on the BP site. Which is half the price if of most brands. Also they come in an awesome assortment of colours. Honestly when it comes to polish overall, Born Pretty is a fantastic place to go.

Have you tried gel polish?

*Polish sent for honest review

Black and White Cartoon Nails

I almost just scratched out my eye with my nail! But luckily my nail JUST missed my eye by a hair, and I ended up scratching my eyelid directly above my lashes. Crisis averted.

Today I have some nails I did a while ago(at this rate I'm going to be saying on almost every post as I'm backed up with posts galore). It's another set of black and white nails(aka the best kind of nails...at the moment).

This is my first set of cartoon nails, and I decided that I wanted to do something that was not the typical red. So I went with black and white(I mentioned that right? That I used black and white?) because I had yet to see it done like this.

In order to get this look I painted my nails white, then I painted the center chunk black all the way up to the tip. Then I painted over the tip in white. Next I went back and tried to fix up anything that was too uneven. Finally I topped it off with some matte topcoat!

I really do love how it turned out even if it's not perfect. But I think this is something I want to try again at some point. I would love to try it again with a red! I think I'll always have a soft spot for black and white.

To matte or not to matte: Am I forgetting something?

The answer to that question is no.  I've just been bit caught up in life stuff.  I will be emailing the winner of out giveaway tonight and when they respond I will be posting the winner and of course some of your answers!

Now for the polish!  So I am in the loves with OPI Suedes.  They are mattes that never fall flat because of the shimmer. But for some reason the blue and blurple of the collection(Russian Navy and Ink) did nothing for me.  In my head I wanted them to be a bit more colour and a bit less shimmer.  I personally thought this would look more chic. (I don't know if this makes sense but I think it will when you see the polish I'm about to show you).

So was I ever happy when I found Nicole By OPI in No Limits Matte(in a discount bin)!  It was the colour that I was wishing the others had been!  First of all I'm not sure why they called this matte.  It's still under the OPI umbrella and it leans MUCH closer to a suede.  No limits is a deep rich navy blue, with just enough shimmer.  I used two coats but you can get away with one.  My one complaint about this is I found it dried SUPER fast.  So I had to move quickly so I didn't get any unwanted streaks, or bumpyness.

I think this was part of the limited edition Gossip girl collection, which means if you want this you'll have to do some hunting online.

Matte

 With top coat

 Ps.  I tried ONE LAST TIME to take a photo of the polish Robyn reviewed yesterday!

Neon Matte Madness!

Hi friends! I've been sick as balls for the last few days…which has meant Hannibal and nail art! Have you guys been watching that show? It's REALLY good. Mads Mikkelsen, get in my bed. You can bring Hugh Dancy too. *AHEM* Sorry, the cough syrup is getting to me.

For this design, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted something loud. Mission accomplished!

 Started with a yellow base, I then sponged randomly with blue, green and orange. Pink stripes in the remaining yellow patches. Then added black chunks. Then dots. I'm sure I could have kept going but it's probably good that I stopped there.

On my left middle finger, the topcoat caused some drag - which I thought looked really cool! The rest of my fingers had dried quite well, though, so this was only cool smudgey one.

I would normally never show you a picture of my thumb, because my thumb cuticles are always so gross. But this looks so rad.

China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Essie Orange It's Obvious, Prevail Roof Top Bar, Personelle Emy, Art Deco Wild Fuchsia and Black, Warpaint Beauty Matte Topcoat.

Maybelline Denim Dash

These photos has been sitting on my computer for a few days and I keep meaning to post them but I have been exhausted due to a lack of sleep(every couple of months I'll have like 2 weeks where I can only sleep ever other night...It's great).  And my neck has been KILLING me.  But that was well worth it.  Hickey and all.

Yeah, I think I'm going to talk about the polish now.

This is my first encounter with any Maybelline polish.  A good friend of mine bought it for me for Christmas.  I actually got to choose between this and Styled out.  But I already had a similar colour.  Anyways I love this colour!  It's a rich sky blue that has silvery-blue flecks in it.  It needed a couple drops of thinner but apart from that it dried in 2 easy coats.  The finish was matte(which is neat because it is part of their denim line) but I ended up using topcoat.  I wanted to last longer.  My only problem was the brush.  Well not so much an problem as a personal preference.  I don't like my brushes that floppy.  I like them a bit stiff so I can have a bot more control(that sounds a bit naughty eh?).

While I never really paid much attention to these polishes I think I'm going to have to start paying more attention to them.

Coming soon: More badass nail art!  Did I hear chains? Also I'm about to go out for sushi.  It's not nail related.  But in my humble opinion it's still news worthy.  What's you favourite thing to order when you go out for sushi?

 In its natural matte state

I was feeling fancy so I added sequins.

Literary Lacquers - Bionic Mmmm-Detector & My Secret Garden: Time to dust off those teal and erotic fiction tags.

So Amy the lovely lady, and brains behind Literary Lacquers was kind enough to send some bottles for me to review.  Before I get started let's just talk about what Literary Lacquers is(just in case the name itself didn't clue you in :P).  All of her polishes are based on books!  Which I think is an brilliant idea.  She will never run out of collections.  Also let's be honest it's a great way to make your fingers look pretty and at the same time maybe you find a book to read that you otherwise might not have found!

Today I'm starting out with 2 colours from Literary Lacquers collection inspired by erotic fiction.

First off is Bionic Mmmm-Detector.  Inspired by Nicholson Bakers novella Vox.  Which is written completely as one one phone sex conversation between strangers.  The polish is a black jelly base filled with tiny blue, aqua and teal glitter.  And it's also laced with fine silver shimmer which gives it an extra pop.  Now as someone who does not wear teal(at all), I feel found myself liking it a lot! I used 3 coats on every finger MINUS my ring finger.  I used one coat of Bionic over a single coat of of L'oreal After hours(a dark blue almost black crelly.)  There wasn't a huge difference but it tended to bring out a BIT more of the blue and it did take away slightly from the overall effect.  But nothing to cry over.

 Two coats of topcoat used.  Although one coat would be fine.

The next one My Secret Garden is inspired by Nancy Fridays book of the same name.  Which is "Hundreds of real women responded to Nancy Friday's call for details of their own most private fantasies. My Secret Garden is the daring compilation of those fantasies."  The polish is a glitter top coat filled with pink, blue, green, and light purple matte glitter and filled with smaller iridescent glitter.  I layered it over Essence Oh My Glitter! and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  I used one thick coat on each.  I loved how they looked on both the lighter and darker colours.  My suggestion would be if you want the iridescent glitter to be more visible layer it over something darker.  More subtle(but just as pretty) layer it over something lighter.  This polish is like spring in a bottle :)  I suggest everyone buy it and then wear it to church for Easter.

And yes this is actually different from the 3 previous photos.  The white is China Glaze White Ice and the pink is CG Free fall.  In person they both looked horrific.  They are old polishes that would not dry and made application hard.  And since I actually wanted to wear this after a couple photos I removed it.

 Now I don't read any enough erotic fiction although I'm pretty sure I know a thing or two about the types of thing that go on in some of the stories ;).  So I personally can't say if I like any of these book or the other books in her collection.  But I do know after this I probably will go out a grab a couple from this list.

You can find these polishes and more over at Literary Lacquers Etsy shop here.   The polishes(15ml bottles) retail for $10USD.  And follow Literary Lacquers on facebook.  Oh also once the page hits 1000 followers(Currently at around 950) there will be a big giveaway! Anyways, stay tuned for more Literary Lacquers!

*Products were sent for honest review.

Two Illamasqua Rubber Brights!

So it's obviously no secret that I adore Illamasqua.  They are easily one of my favourite brands, so I love when they release something new and interesting.  I loved Kink, the first of their rubber finish polishes I owned, and so when they came out with more colours I used my birthday money to snap up the ones that interested me.

So today I have Nurture and Serenity, two gorgeous shades of green and blue respectively.  I love these so much.  You'll have to forgive the slight lobster hands, I promise it wasn't nearly as apparently IRL, but I had been baking and I guess I was quite hot.

First up is Serenity, which is bright, very bright, blue.  It's almost like the brightest sky of the summer kind of blue.  It was so lovely on and I can see it beint a great nail art base.  This is two easy coats, dry time was longer than normal but not enough that it would bother me.

I thought I took a glossy shot of this but I don't think I did, haha.

Next is Nurture, which is a bright green colour.  This is my favourite of the ones I bought.  I love green.  You may remember the neon green walls of my former bedroom from old swatches... Well, this is pretty close!  Like before, this is two easy coats. 

Did you guys pick up any Illamasqua rubber brights??

OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow Suede

I really love having suede polishes in almost every colour.  When I have 20 minutes to get out the door, and I have naked nails, they are there for me.  And they look great if if you choose to wear top coat or not.

Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow Suede is a dark green suede(obviously).  Packed with silver micro shimmer.  I'm almost positive this was 2 coats(These photos were taken a while ago).  And the formula was fantastic.  No cleanup needed!  It didn't dry too fast and start getting all clumpy or streaky and it didn't dry to slow. 

Now this is from the fall 2010 line and is currently discontinued.  But this along with all the other OPI suede polishes I have were purchased relatively recently in stores. I found this in Ricky's in NYC.  I have no clue if Ricky's is only in NYC or is an American-wide thing.  In general I see these all the time in beauty supply stores.

Do you guys like suede polishes?

WELL HELLO THERE

HELLO VALKYRIES.

We have met before. I return to bring you more of my phenomenal wit. The About Me page will be updated when I figure out how to internet.

For my first post as a ~*super duper official nail blogger*~, I wanted to do something special for you! I've had this design in mind for a while and this seemed like a good time to try it out. I have tried here to recreate the cover art from Broken Social Scene's self-titled album.

As you can see, my cleanup here was total balls. DON'T EVEN CARE, LOOK HOW AWESOME THESE ARE.

I used China Glaze Vermillion, a gross Revlon thing I grabbed at Dollarama because I have no pinks (it's scented. WTF.), Essie Orange It's Obvious, China Glaze Stone Cold, Art Deco Black, Wet N Wild Wild Shine French White, Warpaint Beauty Matte Topcoat, and white acrylic paint. I listened to Buffy Sainte Marie, Not BSS.

Get your Mink Mittens on!

So like I mentioned in my last post, I also picked up Manglaze's Mink Mitten, a lovely lavender shimmer.

Have I mentioned I love Manglaze?  Once or twice, probably :P  Well, this is continuing the love affair in a big way.  These polishes are absolutely amazing.  From the formula to the range of colours, I am absolutely crazy about them.  They practically apply themselves, and they are SO easy to control.  This is one coat!  ONE COAT!  I could use two thinner coats, but to be honest one normal one does the trick beautifully.

I'm going to layer it with another gorgeous polish tomorrow.  I saw this particular combination on another blog and I've been dying to recreate it.  It's very girly, which is usually not me.

This one's a little brighter in person.

Glitter Herpes + Vajazzle? I swear this is still about nail polish...

So I've been pretty good about not buying any more polish lately(as in I just haven't bought any except with gift certificates), but I DID bite the bullet when I came across Polish Revolution and saw these.

Now, by now anyone who's read anything I've written here knows that GLITTER is my favourite thing.  So when I saw that Lauren had such amazing glitter polishes with such a great variety... I knew I had to have them.  They're so obnoxious and loud and crazy and just ME.  I'm sure these will make some of you nauseous... Can't say I care :P

So, Vajazzle is a mix of warm and cool toned glitter, and Glitter Herpes is straight up cool toned.

I absolutely love these.  The glitter is dense and EXTREMELY varied.  There are more colours than I can count and lots of shapes and sizes, including my beloved square glitter.  For these swatches I've shown ONE coat of each over black and then over white(Colour Club French Tip and Where's The Soiree, my new favourites of each, YOU NEED FRENCH TIP!).  These applied easily using the dabbing method and there are no bendy glitters to be seen.  I topped these with Gelous and Seche Vite, but they weren't too grainy to begin with.  I also mattified them so you can see the mix better!

Once again, try to excuse my cuticles.  I had to clean a machine at work yesterday and they took a beating.  Nothing a few days of being nice won't fix!

Look who joined me on the balcony for pictures <3 It's Sophie!  She just turned 10.